Labour codes, lost rights: India’s new rules weaken unions, empower capital

 

In a detailed discussion on the Unmute podcast, leading labour scholars Professor Ernesto Noronha and lawyer-researcher Anusha Ravishankar have issued a stark assessment of India’s newly notified labour codes, arguing that the long-pending reforms are designed to attract capital at the expense of worker security, weaken collective bargaining, and exacerbate the vulnerabilities of the country’s vast informal workforce.

The four labour codes—which consolidate 29 central labour laws—were passed by Parliament between 2019 and 2020 but remained unenforced for five years. Notification for implementation was issued on November 21, 2025, with rules finalized on December 30, 2025. The timing, Professor Noronha noted, coincided with India’s signing of a trade agreement with the EU, suggesting a clear message to international investors.

“The labour codes are basically meant to create precariousness and also weaken trade unions,” said Noronha, a professor of labour studies. He explained that key provisions have increased the threshold for requiring government permission for layoffs, retrenchment, and closure from 100 to 300 workers. “Naturally, a lot of industry and a lot of workers will be left out,” he said.

Another central feature is the formalization of fixed-term employment. While the codes offer equivalent benefits to permanent workers on paper, Noronha argued this is a facade. “Fixed-term employment is basically also creating precariousness,” he stated.

Right to Strike Eroded

The most significant attack on union power, according to the experts, lies in provisions governing industrial disputes. For the first time, requirements for strike notices and mandatory conciliation have been extended from public utility services to all industries.

“Previously, this provision was only linked to public utility service,” Noronha explained. “Now, almost all strikes can be made illegal.” The consequence is severe: the codes allow for the cancellation of a trade union’s registration if it engages in an illegal strike. “In effect, you are strangulating the union movement in some sense,” he said.

Ravishankar, of the Centre for Social Justice in Bangalore, added that the codes effectively do away with a statutory framework for collective bargaining. “There is a contradiction with the EU’s emphasis on collective bargaining. In our context, it is completely done away with,” she said.

Social Security: A Promise Without Remedy

The experts were equally critical of the codes’ social security provisions. While the government has framed the reforms as a “flexibility for social security” bargain, Ravishankar argued the new framework is discretionary and welfare-based, not rights-based and universal.

“When we say a right, it means if I do not get it, there has to be a remedy,” she said. “But all benefits are discretionary, contingency-linked. The conceptualization of social security itself is not discretionary. It is a right.”

She pointed to ongoing failures in existing welfare boards, such as the Building and Other Construction Workers (BCW) fund, where cess collected from companies remains massively underutilized or is diverted by state governments. Noronha noted that even employers are apathetic about unutilized funds because the workers—often migrants—are not seen as permanent or embedded in the local community.

Gig Workers: Employees in All But Name

The discussion turned to platform and gig work, which the Social Security Code acknowledges but fails to properly classify. Noronha argued that platform workers should be considered employees, not independent contractors, based on the degree of control exercised by the platform—from setting fees and conditions to imposing penalties.

“Who controls the worker? The platform controls the work of the gig worker,” he said, adding that while some see gig work as a matter of individual choice, surveys show 30-40% of gig workers are graduates and engineers with no better alternatives. Ravishankar added that the codes incentivize the fragmentation of production units to stay below applicability thresholds, pushing more workers into precarious home-based and gig arrangements.

Migrant Workers and Urban Governance

The conversation highlighted a profound governance vacuum for migrant workers, who form the backbone of informal labour. Ravishankar recounted a recent rescue of bonded labourers in a brick kiln where 15 workers refused to leave because returning to their home state meant hunger and zero opportunity.

“They would much rather be exploited for abysmally low wages than go back to hunger,” she said. Noronha linked this to a broader urban design failure, noting that cities provide no shelters, clean drinking water, or cheap food for the gig and platform workers who serve them. “The city doesn’t care for them. Their labour needs to be extracted, and then they need to go back.”

The Way Forward: Solidarity and New Struggles

Despite the grim analysis, both experts refused to abandon hope. Noronha identified three major challenges for the coming decade: the entrenchment of precariousness, the need for a “just transition” for workers affected by climate policy and the shift away from coal, and the fight for data control and algorithmic transparency.

Ravishankar called on civil society to resist the commodification of labour rights work and break out of siloed, donor-driven programming. “I think none of us have the luxury of not being hopeful,” she said.

The episode concluded with a call to rebuild solidarity across lines of caste, class, gender and migration status, drawing on historical examples like the Bombay dock workers’ union and the recent farmers’ movement. “Somewhere, love, compassion, empathy—we are losing that,” the host noted. “We need to move in the direction of rebuilding, recalibrating solidarity.”